Getting my 68 Patrol back on the road.

I have a 68 soft top. I bought it back in 08 or 09 and parked it under an oil tank shed. It sat and sat and sat. Then got attacked bypackrats, building a nest under the entire hood and cab. I always said I would get to it one day and never did. Until I came under attack by tweakers. Tweakers are the scum of the earth. Where I have some vehicles stored they stole every catalytic converter I had, cut almost all my wire harnesses off vehicles stole all 5 wheels from my Range Rover classic. Then they tried unsuccessfully cutting the radiator out of my patrol but in the process they ruined it beyond affordable repair. They even cut the exhaust off the Patrol even though it doesn’t even have a cat (the stupidest of tweakers).

This gave me reason to get my Patrol out of there before they attack again. At the time I did not have time or a place to work on it and I didn’t even know if it would run. I took it to a friend that said he would work on it on the side when he had time. I told him I only want to hear it run, that will give me enough ambition to fix it.

After a couple months of battling packrat mess patching wires and such. He got it to run. He said it fired right up. It ran like a sewing machine. It only has 27k miles on it so it shouldn’t be worn out.

Then he decided he wanted to fix the brakes. I wanted to find new seals and rebuild what I had but he ordered all new wheel cylinders from Australia instead.

I am also sharing this build thread on 60Patrol. They seem to be one of the only L60 Patrol Forums left.

Here are pictures from the Gregslist ad I bought it off of back in 08 or 09. I got it from Grain Valley, East of Kansas City.

My dad came with me to get it and didn’t want to bring a trailer in case I didn’t buy it. So we rented a uhaul trailer. It was a terrible idea. My dad also drove his Nissan ***an which was fairly new at the time. It did great pulling it at 75mph into a 30-40mph headwind. But it got about 3-4mpg doing it. I was pretty poor at the time and was paying for fuel. I remember it barely even to do 100 miles before having to stop for fuel. I know we stopped 3-4 times for fuel on the way back. I think I was broke till payday after that. Good memories of being poor and making great financial decisions…. I remember being too broke to buy it so my stepdad gave me a loan for it and I used my AK47 as collateral until I paid it off.

Pictures from when I first got it home.

Where it sat for 15-16 years.

Its first time out. It was buried almost up to the axles from all the dirt settling around it. I had to lift the tank up to keep the roof from hitting it as it popped up out of the holes. It took more than a couple jerks from my wifes truck.

I dont know what is worse. Packrats or Tweakers. Either way the world would be a better place if they all were deleted.

That pile is how much packrat mess we pulled out of it. Taking it out to my friends I wanted to be sure I wasn’t introducing packrats to his farm. I also powerwashed it underneath and inside out as good as I could. Like he said, a fullsize packrat can hide under a dinnerplate.

Nice score,

Cool truck. Gonna getting it running and driving as is?

abrogate said:

Cool truck. Gonna getting it running and driving as is?

Click to expand...

Yes it runs now and kinda drives. Its a work in progress and parts are non existent for it.

To answer your question
Weakers, rats you can kill...

The PO started working on the brakes. Well he took one side of the front and one side of the back. Only to realize parts didn’t exist for it in the US. When I first got it I could get all the brake parts from Australia for under $250. But at the time I was poor and couldn’t afford that.

Now even in Australia many of the parts are unavailable.

Wheel cylinders are still available over there on EBay. They cost about $250 for just those after shipping and tariffs.

Shoes and adjusters are not available. And it just happens I am missing one rear shoe. If I lost it or the po did. I dont know.

I was also missing some springs. Those can be found somewhere, but not in Nashville KS on a weekend. My friend had a 87-91 F150 bed trailer he pulled a drum off and we were able to use springs from it.

The orange springs are from the Ford.

Front brakes.



The rear with the missing shoe. My friend checked the F150 shoe and it was close in size. He cut and drilled on it till it fit.


Ford Shoe on rear, Nissan on front. It kinda fits.

Clb said:

To answer your question
Weakers, rats you can kill...

Click to expand...

Tweakers are just harder to is all…